


Any Semblance of Touch

by gretaamyk



Category: Criminal Minds, Matthew Gray Gubler - Fandom, Spencer Reid - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Spencer Reid - Freeform, Spencer Reid imagine, criminal minds imagine, spencer reid x reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26653564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gretaamyk/pseuds/gretaamyk
Summary: Y/n gets seriously injured on a case, and Spencer does all he can to help her feel like herself again.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Reader
Kudos: 48





	Any Semblance of Touch

You would think that hospitals would design their waiting rooms to be more comforting. To bring solace to the people waiting here for answers. Waiting for life, waiting for death, waiting for an absolution. Everyone was a jittery mess of nerves already and the harsh bright lights above us certainly wasn’t helping. You’d think they would at least give us a house plant or something. 

Someone in here was leaving with bad news, and I prayed to a god I wasn’t sure of that it wouldn’t be me and my team. Did that make me a bad person? Hoping that that someone else would leave without their loved one because I couldn’t bear to leave without mine? Maybe it did. But the truth was I have had my share of losses in my life time, in fact, I’ve had a lot of people’s share. I think that It should be someone else’s turn, at least for today. Y/n deserved life. She was my best friend, and I refuse to lose her.

The man we had been hunting down was an ex-marine. He had an abject obsession with the wife that left him and a hatred for any women that resembled her. Y/n’s appearance had checked all of the boxes. She had the right height, similar hair color and style, even her eyes matched. This meant that for the purpose of our federal investigation, she had to be sent out as bait to lure him out. But the Unsub had an accomplice that managed to stay under the radar until now. Y/n was an incredible fighter, a person who knew how to protect herself and others. But when opposing two gigantic men with military training, it turned out to be an unfair fight. I was supposed to protect her, but I couldn’t. I failed.

We found Y/n in a back alley to an apartment complex about a mile away from the bar. She was cold and bloody, and when I saw her there I couldn’t breathe or even think coherently. I just fell to her side and brought my shaky finger tips to the vein below her jaw, desperately searching for a heartbeat. I heard Morgan calling for a medic behind me but his voice was muffled. I was whispering reassurances that it would be okay, that she would be okay. The medics were on the way, there was help coming. But she couldn’t hear me, the words spilling off my tongue were mostly meant for my own ears anyway. The Unsubs knew that she was FBI, and that the rest of her team was on their tail, which is why they left her here. In that way, we were lucky. But looking down at her body, limp in my lap, I felt anything but. I couldn’t diagnose the extent of her injuries with my teary vision, but it could be anywhere from needing stitches to ending in fatality. I didn’t know how likely the latter was, but the possibility brought sickness to my stomach.

The men were captured and brought into federal custody, not that I was any help. But instead of relief I found myself anxious and in the hospital waiting room. The rest of the team trickled in after me. Somehow I was hyperaware of surroundings but numb to everything I felt inside me. I was unsure of my emotions, but I could almost feel the humming of the overhead light into my brain. The low sound was a drill penetrating my cranium. 

My god, could someone please turn that off?

The doctor came out after a while, and assured us that she was in stable condition, before clearing us for visiting her. As soon as the words passed her list, I was in y/n’s hospital room.

It hurt to see her like this, but it was a thousand times better than it was to see her on the asphalt just hours ago. She had a catheter stuck in the vein in her hand, and her tired eyes looked everywhere but there. I remembered how much she hated needles, a phobia that stemmed from a series of blood tests she had as a child. Her breaths were short and manual, so she had to be assisted by a nasogastric tube in her nose. She looked fragile and I didn’t speak, as if the vocal waves alone were enough to shatter her. Her eyes finally drifted to me and she weakly smiled.

“I’m not made of glass, Spence, you can come closer.” Her voice rasped. I shyly smiled back and went further into the room, sitting down in the chair next to her hospital bed. “How are you?”

She had a life threatening experience, and she was asking how I was. That was just who she was. Her own needs were on the back burner of her own priority. This was one of the reasons she was so incredible at her job. She was selfless, and generous, and everything she did was for someone else. But she was tightrope walking the line between nobility and carelessness, and this time she fell off on the wrong side of the rope.

“I’m not important right now.” I said with substance, she pulled her lips into a thin line. She wasn’t used to being the center of attention and I don’t think she liked it very much. “How are you feeling?” I asked her, looking to our team members who had funneled in behind me.

“I feel better than I look. I promise.” she laughed and I weakly smiled in response, “but Spencer, I have a question.”

“Yeah? Anything.”

“Well, the doctors told me that if everything goes to plan then I can leave in like two days… but the thing is, I have a concussion, and I would need someone to watch over me for the first 24 hours or something.. a-and if I cant I’ll have to stay longer, and I- you know, I live alone-”

“Are you asking me to watch you?” I asked , she swallowed and nodded shyly. 

I wanted to agree right away. I wanted nothing more than to help her, and heal her, and stay with her so she wasn’t lonely. I couldn’t just leave her alone in the hospital, she hated hospitals. I remember a time a few years ago when she broke her pinky finger, and I struggled to convince her to come at all. But, I had a job, and a needy one at that. If I stayed with y/n then I would need some time off on work, and I don’t think that was something I could have. But still, I couldn’t tell her no, and I looked at Emily like a little kid asking his mother for another cookie.

I didn’t expect her to, but she caved and gave me the whole jar. “Reid, if you want to, then we could find ways to work it out with your schedule.”

I smiled, and turned back to Y/n, “Yeah, I’ll do it.”  
-  
Narrator 

Spencer unlocked the door to Y/n’s apartment, while supporting her movement with his other arm. She was released from the hospital and they had given him clear instructions on how to care for her.

He walked her in and had guided her down to the couch. He set down our bags and then he went around the room, closing the blinds and blocking our bright lights. She watched him with an amused, curious expression, “Is that really necessary?” she asked.

“Yes. When I was having my headaches, I had an extreme adverse reaction to light. You need to be in a dark room, Doctors orders.”

“Spencer. One, please don’t use big words I don’t understand, I’m not supposed to be thinking that hard. Two, don’t refer to yourself as the Doctor.”

“Sorry,” He laughed, continuing to dim the lights like it was his mission. Y/n started to stand back up and he turned over his shoulder, hearing her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to the bathroom, relax, I can do that by myself.”

He nodded and she walked into the bathroom, immediately turning the bright lights out of habit, and then cursing and covering her eyes in pain.

“Are you okay?” He asked, running over to her as she pressed herself against the frame of the door. He turned the bathroom light off again to help her pulsing head. He felt bad that she was in pain, but he couldn’t help but tease her, “I thought you could do it by yourself.”

“Not now, Doctor.” she scolded, pinching the bridge of her nose like an irritated school teacher. 

“I’m sorry,” He laughed, and she shot him an annoyed glare. He went in to the bathroom and opened the blinds just enough so she could see the room a little better and not kill herself trying to pee.

Y/n thanked him and went in, closing the door but not all the way.  
She finished and washed her hands, but she took a double take, seeing her reflection in the dirty vanity mirror. It was shocking to her to say the least. There was a cut on her forehead, leading up into her scalp, and her left eye was blackened from a particularly hard punch to her face. She saw what she looked like before, when she was changing out of her hospital clothes. But the feelings she felt now were new.

“Oh, god,” she mumbled, turning the water off and bringing her hands up to her bruised neck. Her shaky fingers undid the buttons and pulled it off her shoulders. Her eyes looked down her torso and felt them well up with tears. Her skin was a canvas of blue, purple, and pink. She didn’t feel inspired by the array of colors, she felt sick as her memories came back to her.

Y/n was weaving in and out of the realm of consciousness, and she now couldn’t decipher what was real or fake. She realized that she was in a alley between two large brick buildings. She tried to move, but the men that caused her all of this pain had beat her so much that it was impossible. 

The men had now left but the aching of her body was a reminder of their presence at all. It hurt especially bad in her head, her chest, and in between her legs. 

She forced her eyes to look up at the stars that she could see between the buildings. She tried to imagine that she was stargazing with her best friend, Spencer. Y/n loved him, more than as a best friend, but she was convinced that these were her last moments and that she would never have the chance to tell him. So she decided that spending her last moments with him stargazing, even if they were fake, was the best thing she could have right now.

Tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks, and blood spilled from her wounds. The warm liquid was almost comforting, the kindest touch she felt compared to the harsh air and the rocky asphalt. It was the kindest touch she felt, until she heard Spencer call her name and immediately pull her into his lap. She didn’t want to die, especially not in front of him. But selfishly, she was happy that her final moments with him were real.

Y/n looked at herself in the mirror and tried to catch her breath, propping herself up on the cold counter. Her eyes had tears spilling from them and her breathing was hard, as if there was a snake gradually constricting around her neck. She stumbled out of the room, not bothering to put her shirt back on. She tried to remain composure until she got into the privacy of her bedroom, in attempt to avoid alerting the tall Doctor on her sofa. She failed nonetheless, he looked up from the random book he had picked up.

“Y/n?” He asked, concerned. He got up, chasing after her but she shut the door in his face. He reached his hand to the door knob, wiggling it, but it wouldn’t budge because she switched the lock. “Y/n? Are you okay?” He asked again, still rattling the handle as if it would magically unlock, “Y/n, the whole reason I’m here right now is to watch you. Please open the door… talk to me.”

She didn’t respond. She felt bad but it was so difficult to breathe, or even to stand, she didn’t want him worrying. But that was inevitable. He had been worried for three days, and this certainly didn’t help.

He eventually went away, his door knob wiggling and his pleading for the door to open ceased. She figured that the boy gave up and let her be alone. But then she heard the faucet turn on in the bathroom, It sounded like he was running a bath. 

Did he remember? She thought, peaking her head back out of the pile of pillows she was spooning. Y/n told him years ago that when she was overwhelmed with anxiety as a kid, her mother would run her a hot bubble bath with lavender oil. Then, when she and her boyfriend broke up, Spencer did exactly that. He sat by her while reading her his favorite poems. They were in Russian, but it didn’t matter because the only thing that mattered to her in that moment was him.

Then, soon after the water stopped running, her door swung open. Spencer was crouched behind it, having picked open the lock with a bobbi pin he found in the bathroom.

“Spencer, wha-” Spencer cut the crying girl off by pulling her into his arms like a small child. She wordlessly complied, wrapping her arms around his neck and cuddling into his chest. He carried her into the bathroom and set her down. 

“Get undressed, get in,” He said gently. He left the room, but he didn’t need to, they’ve done this before. Nudity wasn’t inherently sexual, that’s just how it was perceived in modern media. Spencer and Y/n were so comfortable with each other that it simply didn’t matter, all that mattered to him was making sure that she was okay. Making sure that she was healing.

Y/n removed the rest of her clothes and stepped into the tub. The water was so hot that it stung when she felt it against her skin, but in a way it felt nice. It felt like she was purging herself from the men that hurt her so badly, their touch eradicated by the scalding water. She slowly emerged herself fully into, and the fluffy bubbles reached just above her breasts.

Her eyes closed as she let herself disappear within the bubbles. She knew that this probably wasn’t good for her wounds, but it didn’t matter. It burned too good against them for her to stop. 

She finally came back out, wiping soapy water from her face.

“Spencer?” Y/n called so softly that Spencer almost didn’t hear her. 

“Yeah?” He responded with equal fragility, suddenly appearing in the open doorway.

“Can you read to me again? Like you did last time?”

He contemplated, the two sides to his brain argued. Logically, he knew that the concussed brain wasn’t able to handle advanced stimulation. But emotionally, he knew that Y/n was struggling, and It was his job to protect her, even from her own mind. He needed to be her distraction. Spencer figured that a couple paragraphs couldn’t hurt.

“I, uh… sure.” He walked in further and shoved his hands deep in his pockets, “What do you want to hear?”

Her eyes closed, sinking down again but stopping at her mouth. “Theres a poetry book on my coffee table, by Bo Burnham.”

“The comedian?” He tilted his head to the side, like dogs do when they’re confused. She nodded and then he went out to grab the book entitled ‘Egghead’. He came back into the bathroom, and took a seat next to the tub on the cold floor. “Any specific poem you want to hear?”

“No,” She opened her eyes and trailed them to the boy beside her. He was tall, but the way he sat with his legs crisscrossed, he looked like a little boy in preschool again. “Just flip through them and pick whatever.”

“Alright,” he sighed, flipping quickly through the pages before stopping on a random poem. “Flowers. On the third of June, at a minute past two, where once was a person, a flower now grew. Five daisies arranged on a large outdoor stage in front of a ten acre pasture of sage. In a changing room, a lily poses. At the DMV, rows of roses. The world was much crueler an hour ago, I’m glad someone decided to give flowers ago.”

Her eyes didn’t leave him the entire time he read, and he didn’t notice, he was as immersed in this goofy little book than he would be by The Grapes of Wrath. When the boy finally looked up to see her already looking at him with a childlike fondness, he blushed. It was funny that this small action was what made him blush. Especially considering how she was naked in front of him. He coughed and looked down to the book, again flipping to a random page and reading out whatever he found.

“Perfect. I love you just the way you are, but you don’t see you like I do. You shouldn’t try so hard to be perfect. Trust me, perfect should try to be you.” He blushed even harder reading it aloud. 

“This is a book full of dick jokes and bad punchlines, and you managed to randomly pick two of the cute ones?”

“I guess so, I mean, I wasn’t trying.” He said with a shrug, he put the book back down, and he grabbed her shampoo bottle instead. He dumped the purple liquid out into the palm of his hand, and lathered it in between his large hands. He began massaging it into her scalp and through the length of her her hair.

She shut her eyes again, happily humming at the feeling of his fingers in her roots. He used his extensive knowledge on the practice of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture points. He located and activated them with his fingers mimicking filiform needles, points meant to stop headaches, low energy, and dizziness. 

He used the detachable shower head to rinse the suds from her hair, and repeated the process with the coconut scented conditioner.

“Thank you..” she said softly. He furrowed his eyebrows and dropped his hands from her hair, drying them off on a towel.

“For…what?”

“For taking care of me.” tears pricked the corners of her eyes, “I’m broken… but you’re here anyway.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?” he stammered, “You’re not broken.”

“Spencer,” she started slowly, finding his hands with her own. “I died a few days ago… I felt cold an-and I saw darkness… and I don’t want to die for real, because I’m worried that that’s all I’ll have waiting for me. That scares me, Spence, It scares me so much.” She sobbed out, with her tears now spilling down her cheeks. Spencer blinked and straightened up his posture, like he was physically preparing himself for where this was going. “Those two men… they were the last people I saw. They hurt me…an-and violated me and I thought that that was the last thing I’d ever see…And I didn’t want that. So instead, I looked up at the stars and I imagined the two of us stargazing again. I wanted that to be last thing I remembered. I wanted to see you smiling again and holding me and telling me everything there is to know about the universe. And then I heard you in real life, and I felt you, and I-I prayed to god that I would live… because the thing that scared me even more than dying without you… was knowing that you would never know how I really feel about you.”

Spencer had begun crying too. His face remained stoic but the salty tears slipped down his cheeks and his lips quivered. He knew what she was saying, and he knew what she was about to say. But he didn’t dare respond now because he needed to know for sure.

“Spencer…” she said weakly, trying to blink away her tears but It didn’t work. She clasped his hands together and held them up against her cheek. 

“What?” he responded, barely above a whisper, grazing his thumb delicately under her eyes, wiping the tears away.

“I fell in love with you that day… and I have ever since.”

He brought his hands back to himself and wiped his own tears away, looking at her again a conflicted expression on his face.

“Say something, please.”

“Can I…” he finally stumbled out, after needing a moment to collect his rampant thoughts, “um, can I kiss you?”

Relief flooded her and rid her of any other feeling she could possibly have. “Yes.” she exhaled, and he immediately brought his lips to hers in a merging of two souls that have longed for each other for lifetimes. His hands found their way to cup the sides of her face and their tears mixed together like paint on a canvas. They both found their way to a standing position, and he stepped out of the bathtub without breaking apart. Her drenched body wet his outfit, but he didn’t mind and continued to hold her and kiss her and assure her that everything she told him he requited. But his mouth spoke without using any words

When they finally broke apart, Spencer looked down at her with a confused adoration that he wasn’t able to explain. That was scary for him because he always knew how to explain stuff. Still, at this point he was used to the feeling because for five years now, Y/n had made him feel this way.

“I loved you since day one.”

“It couldn’t have hurt you to say it,” she joked. He smiled and grabbed a robe off the hook and gave it to her. She shyly slipped her body into it and tied the belt in a bow.

“I just did,” he smiled. He never imagined that this would ever happen, not to him. But still, as difficult as that was, now came the even harder part. Their words were now oxidizing, but neither knew how to move from here. They were best friends, and they have been for five years. But they were also work colleagues, working closely together and under supervision by their boss, and now possibly by fraternization laws. That wasn’t something they wanted to think about, especially not with the added layer of her injuries. So Spencer decided to ignore that for now, and just continue the job he was sent here to do. “Now come on, you need to take a nap.”

Y/n just nodded compliantly, and allowed Spencer to guide her into her bedroom. He helped her change into her pajamas and she lied down under the bed under the tufted duvet.

“Can you stay with me?” she asked when Spencer started to walk away.

He blinked, “Yeah, okay.” He closed the door behind him and went towards her. He climbed in bed next to her and she cozied into him. She was freezing from emerging from the comparably hot water, so she clung to his warm body like she was trying absorb into him.

They lied there for at least an hour. Y/n didn’t fall asleep though, Spencer did. Her body was on top of his, and she was almost worried that she would crush him. But he was the one that subconsciously led her there to that spot. She just looked up at him with a happy smile on her face, her head moving up and down with the breathing of his chest that supported her.

Then when he woke up, he saw her already looking at him and with a goofy grin he pushed her off again. “Did you sleep at all?” He asked.

She ignored his question, instead answering with another. “Why can’t I bring myself to let you go?”

“What do you mean?” He tuned to his side to face her even more directly.

“Ever since we got home I can’t seem to leave your side and I don’t know why.”

“Well,” he started, and she smirked knowing she just pushed him to give her a speech on the science behind attachment. “We as a species are slaves to any semblance of touch. We’re always looking for someone to attach to, particularly if we’re hurting, or scared, or vulnerable… which would be fitting for you considering how you threw yourself at me in the bathtub.” He joked and y/n scoffed.

“That’s not what happened!”

“Oh, but it’s exactly what happened! Now we better call up Morgan and tell him there’s a new stud in the office, huh?” He moved again so he was now on top of her, and he closed the gap between them, kissing her again. It was much shorter than the last one, but also hungrier and more purposeful. He broke apart from the girl below him only when she laughed at his statement.

“You wish, Dr. Reid.” She smiled at him and traced her fingers over his jawline. “You’re not gonna leave, are you?”

“No, I’m stuck with you for another 22 hours and 37 minutes.” He joked while looking at his wrist watch, though that was just for the theatrics. He already knew exactly how much more time he needed to watch her.

“Spencer.” She warned with an exaggerated pout. He just kissed the tip of her nose before saying, 

“No, I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
